It was never a case of “if”—only “when.”
It came down to a gorgeous Saturday night in Newport, Rhode Island, as Roger Federer—along with former pro player and acclaimed sports broadcaster Mary Carillo—was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame (ITHF)—the sort of honor that anyone who had seen him play throughout his storied career knew awaited him, sooner rather than later.
Tennis fans turned out in record numbers to pay tribute to both Carillo and Federer, with hundreds witnessing the ceremony in the ITHF’s historic Horseshoe Court and thousands more gathered nearby on the grounds at an enormous watch party. It was the culmination of days of events at the Hall of Fame, including Friday night’s Fit for Fame Blazer Presentation Dinner, at which the newest honorees received their custom Brooks Brothers blue blazers with the ITHF racket logo on the pocket.
To those readers wondering, “Why Newport?”: The ITHF is located in the former Newport Casino athletic complex, which established the national reputation of the firm McKim, Mead & White. Aside from being the center of Newport’s social life from the Gilded Age through the 1920s, the site was also host to the earliest lawn tennis championships in the United States and, in 1954, became the home of the ITHF, which includes a revelatory museum, public courts—both indoor and outdoor, on grass and other surfaces—and one of the country’s rare court tennis facilities. (The Horseshoe Court also hosted the early years of the Newport Jazz Festival, including Bob Dylan’s historic performance with Joan Baez in 1963.)
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Minutes before the ceremony began, Federer—following a long list of Hall of Famers including John McEnroe and Stan Smith, along with skiing legend Lindsey Vonn, a friend of Federer’s—greeted the crowd at the watch party, even fielding a few questions. (To one father, who asked the 20-time Grand Slam champion what he should do to encourage and prepare his four-year-old daughter for a stellar tennis career, Federer responded, deadpan: “Four—it’s a little late, isn’t it? I started at three. I mean, I think the train has left the station.”)
Moments later, at a private reception upstairs at the ITHF’s monumental headquarters, surrounded by his wife, Mirka, and the couple’s two sets of twin children, along with their close friends, Federer was at once his usual self—relaxed, self-assured, self-effacing, and impeccably turned-out in a tan suit, white shirt, and navy tie—and, as he put it, “kind of nervous.” He smiled and bade us farewell as we found our places out on the grass court.
